On the Sunday after the week of Fifa’s very public disrobing in Zurich, Qatar arrived in Crewe for this friendly with Northern Ireland.

Given the controversial awarding of the 2022 World Cup by the Sepp Blatter-led world governing body to the emirate and its terrible record of abusing migrant employees building the tournament’s infrastructure, the timing of this match was apposite. It would offer a chance to hear the response of Qatar, which is led by Abdulaziz Hatem, and their just-appointed coach, José Daniel Carreno, to these issues and an opportunity to become familiar with its players.

Yet by the time the sides wandered out in front of the Alexandra Stadium’s Ice Cream Van Stand just before 5pm, the silence from Qatar during the build-up had become deafening. Unlike Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland, who had two pre-game press days, there had been no media access offered by the state, and close to zero communication from the Qatar Football Association when trying to establish if there might be any.

This was Carreno’s debut match in charge, the Uruguayan replacing Djamel Belmadi after Qatar’s disappointing performance at the recent Asian Cup in Australia. The nation has never played at the World Cup. Their latest quest begins on 11 June in a group including China, Hong Kong, Bhutan and Maldives. Preparations for this also include meeting Scotland on Friday at Easter Road.

Qatar have drawn criticism for naturalising players from outside the country, and Carreno’s 4-3-3 on Sunday afternoon featured five not born there – Amine Lecomte and Dame Traore, who are French, Mohammed Kasola, who grew up in Ghana, Majdi Siddiq, a left-sided midfielder who hailed from Saudia Arabia, and the attacker Mohammed Muntari, who is also Ghanian by birth. And Qatar’s goal-scorer, Karim Boudiaf, who struck a 20-yard curling shot past the Northern Ireland goalkeeper Michael McGovern, is French-born.

O’Neill is critical of the policy. “It’s not a good thing. I can understand why a country like Qatar has to take that route,” he said. “But the international game is the part of the game least affected by finance. If you go down the naturalisation route, where do you stop? International football could lose a bit of its identity.”

The manager denied there was any debate regarding whether Northern Ireland should take this match. “No, not from my point of view, I’m only looking at it from a football perspective,” he insisted. “When the game was offered to us it obviously gave us an opportunity to play in the UK, which was suitable given the preparation for Romania. Ultimately the plan was to play Wales on Thursday; that didn’t materialise and now we have the option to go and play in Dublin. The main driving factor was location and making sure the preparation was right.”

Hassan Al Haidos, perhaps the finest talent Carreno has at his disposal, did not start, though he was offered a late cameo. Qatari by lineage and the current player of the year, the winger is a free-kick specialist and crosser, so it was a surprise he was not introduced directly after the break given the paucity of chances the side had created.

By the time he did come on, O’Neill had brought McGovern on for Roy Carroll and watched as three minutes into the second-half Stuart Dallas registered an inaugural Northern Ireland strike, beating Lecomte from close range following lax Qatar defending.

The Northern Irish support made up the majority of the 3,022 crowd and they were well and truly enjoying themselves. To the beat of a continual drum, they offered ditties about having several drinks with “Georgie Best”, and ones that featured taunts of, “Shall we take a bribe for you?” and “Bribery bribery – if you come from Qatar you’re into bribery”, while waving notes at the players in white.

If this was due to allegations that a murky process granted Qatar the 2022 World Cup, the core of players who may feature then are hoped to come from the Under-20 team.

Qatar’s best success on the global stage came at the 1981 U20 World Cup in Australia, when they reached the final, beating Brazil and England en route. Qatar lost 4-0 to West Germany at the SCG, 4-0, but the hero of that run, Badr Bilal, who scored three times including a memorable bicycle kick, believes the latest vintage can benefit from competing at the current finals in New Zealand. “They will gain great experience at this tournament, and if they continue in the right way they will be a part of the team in 2022,” he said.

Yet given the crisis at Fifa, there is no certainty Qatar will host those finals. And, on this showing, there is also work to be done on the actual football.